A broadband experience
The Department of Physics at ETH Zurich offers a uniquely broad range of basic research. The department members could experience this breath in a rich and varied programme at the 2017 Department Day on 1 June.
The programme included talks on activities and developments in the department and in various research groups, lab tours, and last but not least the traditional outdoor lunch, this year in wonderfully sunny weather.
The talks
Neither a department nor a proud fleet can reach their goals without a well-coordinated team. The Department of Physics will now have a new captain: starting from 1 August 2017, Prof. Rainer Wallny will take over from Prof. Simon Lilly. The department faces some organizational changes, which will be communicated in full in due course. What is certain, however, is that there will be no changes regarding research activities.
A protected page subset of the slides gives an overview of the presentation of Prof. Wallny. The contributions of Prof. Lilly were honoured on 2 June at the Department Conference. He will receive a Newton telescope from the department as a gift for his service.
As an introduction to the following guided tours, professors Hans Martin Schmid, Anastasiou Charalampos, Andrey Zheludev, Atac Imamoglu and Christoph Grab presented their research groups and, in some cases, other research areas of the respective institutes, before inviting the department members to come and have a look at their work. With each of the short lectures one would have gladly listened longer and asked questions.
New positions
- Advanced Physics Lab (VP): Dr. Severian Gvasaliya officially takes over the academic management together with Christoph Grab in the Autumn Semester 2017, to follow Prof. Thomas Ihn. Thomas Ihn was cordially thanked for his great commitment.
- Laboratory Support Group: This group has been reorganized with Isabelle Altorfer as the new head, succeeding Hans Jürg Gübeli. Dursun Aydin takes over the former position of Isabelle Altorfer.
- Visual Communication: Sara Hartmann joined the team in May as a Graphic Designer, to replace Amanda Eisenhut, who has left ETH.
- New professors at the department are Aude Gehrmann-De Ridder and Vadim Geshkenbein.
- Heartfelt thanks go to the two recently retired Hans Jürg Gübeli and Herrmann Wüst.
Awards
Adam Sookdeo and Toni Shiroka were honoured with the VP Award. Congratulations!
The lab tours
A large group of department members provided exciting insights into their research areas, presented during various guided tours — some sort of physics speed dating. Download All six programmes (PDF, 52 KB) with three different laboratory visits each were tempting in their own right, but unfortunately one had to choose one of them. 18 apprentices accompanied the 18 groups on their discovery tours. Well-prepared presentations in the labs with plenty of visual material quickly made clear how much commitment the groups had put into preparing the presentation of their research activities. If only the individual groups would not have to move on quite so quickly!
Barbecue
The pictures of Heidi Hostettler in the photo gallery show better than words could be just how big the crowds were.
